FESTIVAL ABC

What a party! Despite circumstances beyond the promoter’s control such as the bad weather this year’s Summer Breeze open air was a total success. Never before it has been sold out so quickly and 40.000 people (three days total) didn’t leave much space. Being sunny and warm the Thursday was a perfect day for an open air. Even Friday started quite well but a rainy afternoon followed by an even rainier Saturday couldn’t keep the fans from partying and both, bands and fans were having a good time. Thank you to you all for that! See you next year!

MIDNATTSOL (NOR/GER) 13.00 - 13.30 MS

No midnight sun, a bright day it was when this norwegian/german team entered the stage to start off. Though it was quite early that day neither band nor fans seemed to be in a bad mood. The female lead vocalist, dressed up all in white, was happy and grateful to be part of her “favourite open air festival”. The drummer turned out to be the moving power behind the band banging through the entire set. The band found an exciting way to build up power by putting in quiet passages just to let it go again with driving mid tempo parts. One of the guitarists proved to have a good taste by using a Dimebag Darrell guitar. A well done entrée to the festival with an appealing band finishing their set with a song based on an Edward Grieg track.

FINAL BREATH 13.35 - 14.05 PS

An obviously bigger and more enthusiastic crowd gathered in front of the pain stage to welcome FINAL BREATH. After 5 records and being around for years they are now about to bring in the harvest due to the often proclaimed renaissance of thrash metal. So both, bands and fans started to freak out. The singer’s stage appearance was remarkable and turned the crowd even wilder. Also the stringers went crazy on stage so the audience couldn’t escape. Respect!

BORN FROM PAIN (NL) 14.10 -14.50 MS

1. Death & The City 2. Rise Or Die 3. Final Nail 4. Judgement 5. Day Of The Scorpio 6. Never Return 7. Kill It Tonight 8. Reclaiming The Crown 9. Black Gold 10. New Hate 11. Civilization

Second band on the main stage was BORN FROM PAIN from Holland. And an even bigger crowd gathered in front of the stage among which plenty of hard core fans seemed to be. The dutch just recently released their debut album on Metal Blade records and didn’t waste any time and started to give the fans what they wanted: metallic hard core at its best. The crowd was greatful and mosh and circle pits were built immediately. The band went nearly nuts on stage and kept throwing their hellish grooves, razor blade breakdowns, high speed up tempo beats and rough shouts into the audience. Surprisingly some parts of the audience already knew the lyrics of the newer tracks such as “New Hate”. Sometimes called the “European HATEBREED” they didn’t convince just with their new tracks but also with the classic stuff like “Reclaiming The Crown” or “Death And The City”. Everybody having a good time proved that hard core does belong to the summer breeze open air.

Setlist: 1. Death & The City 2. Rise Or Die 3. Final Nail 4. Judgement 5. Day Of The Scorpio 6. Never Return 7. Kill It Tonight 8. Reclaiming The Crown 9. Black Gold 10. New Hate 11. Civilization

ANOREXIA NERVOSA (F) 14.55 - 15.25 PS

According to their name these french boys were quite thin and also dressed up in uniforms. Black clothes are not worth mentioning anymore, white make up and heavy boots and armbands still are. Extreme metal with an extra punch of double bass and blast beat attacks. The fans were obviously waiting for that as they gave the French a really warm welcome!

It was about time for a real rock’n’roll party. And THE BONES from Sweden are the perfect band to do so. Dirty rock’n’roll with attitude. Greasy, bump kicking and sweaty topped with high class melodies to sing along. And even the visual thing was set up perfectly: sleaze rocker with Cowboy hat, the rock’n’roll street boy and evil Elvis with red socks. Though the sun was nearly red hot at that time the band unfolded their entire potential. The fans were soaking up this power and had massive fun. Most of the songs played were from their latest album “Straight Flush Ghetto” but also a few old tracks got played and rounded off a perfect set of arse kicking rock.

IMPIOUS (SWE) 16.15 - 16.50 PS

These five guys from Sweden came saw and conquered just because of their introduction: a surf track of the Pulp Fiction soundtrack which stood in heavy contrast with the rest of the show. Brutal death thrash with angry throats and evil growls. The stage acting was powerful and especially the bass player was running around on stage like crazy. But also the rest of the band was in the very front of the stage facing the crowd’s front row. Being around for eleven year’s now they certainly made a lot of new fans on this festival as well as on their recent tour with AMON AMARTH and CATARACT.

PINK CREAM 69 16.55 - 17.40 MS

1. Thunderdome 2. Do You Like It 3. Hells Gone Crazy 4. Lost in Illusions 5. Talk to the Moon 6. Seas Of Madness 7. Shame 8. Keep your Eye on the Twisted 9. So Lonely

Well, what to say in this case? It became kind of a tradition to have one or two traditional Hard Rock/Heavy Rock bands on the billing. After AXXIS and KROKUS in the past this year PINK CREAM 69 had to do this job next to SYMPHORCE. Probably the band was asking themselves why they had to play on a festival like this. But again it was interesting to see how open minded the SUMMER BREEZE audience can be. And so it was quite natural to give the PC boys a big hand during the entire set. Singer David Rreadman’s introductions were funny enough to make it even easier for the crowd and the 45 minutes playing time showed an interesting overview of the band’s musical creations. The POLICE classic “So Lonely” with a little BOB MARLEY trip in the middle left the crowd exited and in a summer mood suiting the wheather perfectly well

Setlist: 1. Thunderdome 2. Do You Like It 3. Hells Gone Crazy 4. Lost in Illusions 5. Talk to the Moon 6. Seas Of Madness 7. Shame 8. Keep your Eye on the Twisted 9. So Lonely

MACABRE (USA) 17.45 - 18.25 PS

MACABRE are different and they show. The singer’s outfit was not trendy at all and his hair cut was beyond any dress codes. Using a headset instead of a microphone made the people pay even more attention. Musically they were concentrating on old school death metal with simple riffing mostly played in mid tempo though they were hitting the gas every now and then. Each song got introduced and it was mainly about serial killers and the deeds they did. As they were singing also about two german killers parts of the lyrics were sung in german. People with a dark sense of humour could laugh about that and there seemed to be quite some. A guy behind me screamed “You Fuck Great”. Well, what else to say…?

SCHANDMAUL 18.30 - 19.20 MS

Even though they weren’t playing on a headliner position the audience treated them as such right from the start. During the second song the crowd was singing along louder than the band and in song #3 most of the people in front of the stage went down on their knees just to jump up again after being told to do so by the band. Impressive! The main part of the show was the singer but the two ladies playing pipes, bagpipes and violins weren’t second best at all. Even the visual set up made them different. Not using a normal backdrop the band used a huge blue silky curtain instead. And not just the drums were placed on a riser. Also bassist and guitarist had an own riser and the backline speakers were placed invisibly on the side of the stage. Each musician was nearly perfect but the bassist left the biggest impression to be professional. SCHANDMAUL were the winner of the day and the show was an event not to be forgotten. Probably that was the reason for the two BORN FROM PAIN guitarists to watch the entire show from aside the stage.

GOD DETHRONED (NL) 19.25 - 20.05 PS

Dutch as dutch can. Holland’s brain splitter delivered what hey were supposed to, death and black metal mixed together just to hit the people’s face. Boldy Henry was announcing hate without no mercy. His band’s music was running like a tank over Abtsgmuend. Brutal walls of guitar sounds and hyper fast blastbeats, it was all there. Musically on a high level they kicked everybody’s balls. Well done Sir Henry, well done!

THERION treated the audience smoother, way smoother. After having been mutated from a death metal into an opera metal band they hit the stage with a little choir of two ladies and a gentleman added by another frontlady and a normal metal shouter. As this wasn’t powerful enough bandleader Christofer Johnsson took the mic to sing older songs mostly himself. The ladies’ opera dresses and the extensive make up added to the rest of the band were a real eye catcher. The mixture of old and new songs found a warm reception among the fans. Only bad thing was the fact that all violins were playback. But the metal part of the band balanced this with an outrageous and a perfect musically performance. With this show they proved to be above the current hype of opera metal. No fake, real art!

EKTOMORF (HUN) 21.15 - 22.00 PS

Intro 1. Set Me Free 2. Show Your Fist 3. Instinct 4. Fuck You All 5. Burn 6. You Get What You Give 7. Gypsy 8. I Know Them 9. You Leech 10. Serial Man 11. United Nation 12. I Will

The boys from Hungary developed themselves to be one of the big players of the genre. A few years ago they were playing on the same stage at the same festival and they had been climbing up the ladder of success since! During the change over the crowd kept screaming for EKTOMORF all the time. Hitting the stage finally they turned the people into a jumping, screaming and twitching sea of bodies. All the way back to the front of house mixer. And that didn’t change a single bit during the entire show. Being said to be a brilliant live band they proved that was correct. Song by song got fired into the audience being interrupted only by “we love you” and “thank you” statements. Surprisingly they haven’t worn any camouflage clothes.

Setlist: Intro 1. Set Me Free 2. Show Your Fist 3. Instinct 4. Fuck You All 5. Burn 6. You Get What You Give 7. Gypsy 8. I Know Them 9. You Leech 10. Serial Man 11. United Nation 12. I Will

AMON AMARTH (SWE) 22.05 - 23.10 MS

Intro 1. An Ancient Sign 2. Pursuit Of Vikings 3. Releasing Surtur's Fire 4. Masters Of War 5. Fate Of Norns 6. 1000 Years Of Opression 7. VS The World 8. For The Stabwounds 9. Victorious March 10. Death In Fire

Beware. The vikings are taking over. But instead of escaping people moved closer to the stage. Definetely a good decision. Who hasn’t done so did miss one of the most massive performances that day. Being live as convincing as on record the Swedish axe machine rammed down everything in its way. The undefeated world champions in synchronic moshing mainly played tracks of the last two albums and often enough the people sang along louder than the band. Still getting a goose skin thinking about this. What a headliner. What a crowd.

Setlist: Intro 1. An Ancient Sign 2. Pursuit Of Vikings 3. Releasing Surtur’s Fire 4. Masters Of War 5. Fate Of Norns 6. 1000 Years Of Opression 7. VS The World 8. For The Stabwounds 9. Victorious March 10. Death In Fire

A great day to be ended by a great band. Final tunes that day were supplied by HAGGARD. Loyal fans might remember to have seen them play at the Summer Breeze once already. In the early days when there was only one stage to be played. And just like in good old times they received a warm welcome. Calling them just another medieval band definitely wouldn’t do justice to them at all. It’s not easy to categorize this band. Just to prove they again played medieval tunes and changed into Scandinavian traditionals the next minute. Only to move on to death metalish stuff. All combined in one song. This orchestral band playing violins, keyboards, percussions and the classic rock instruments, apart from the three back up vocalists tuning themselves up into opera heights did have a space problem on stage. So what? The audience liked it a lot and got disappointed by the gentleman who switched off electricity due to the strict curfew. Well, there used to be clocks on stage and everybody knew about the curfew so no one to blame but the band. What a shame. But they might be back soon.